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Something terrible must have happened to John Michael McDonagh , the screenwriter and director, after he made “ Calvary .” That 2014 movie, a darkly comic murder mystery and a relentlessly but purposefully morbid exploration of mortality and faith, made me pretty eager to see whatever its creator had up his sleeve next. But this ostensible satire on American cops, crime movies, American values or lack thereof, intellectualism and anti-intellectualism, racism, and so on, is so hackneyed, tired, labored and overstuffed with contempt not only for all of its targets but also its own self that one gets the feeling that the talented Mr. McDonagh has gone mad with rage. Possibly during dealings with the American film industry.

Still, that’s no excuse for a movie that begins with a mime joke. Yeah, a mime joke. You just can’t get enough of those, can you? The film’s protagonists, Terry and Bob, played by Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña respectively, are police detectives in nice blue suits driving a cherry vintage American car and chasing a mime. Terry asks Bob if a mime will make a sound if you hit it with a car, so they’re that kind of cops. They find out, and to justify the gag, a bag of cocaine is found on the mime, who does make a sound and who also bleeds from the mouth after being hit with the car, which is undamaged.

In the early scenes of the film, McDonagh shoots a lot of bright flat, tableaus, and accompanies them with corny horns-blaring Cop TV Show music. One gets to suspecting that he’s going to cough up something like a feature-length version of the video for the Beastie Boys’ “ Sabotage .” If only. The shooting style is meant to accentuate a certain absurdism: Terry and Bob are such awful cops that the crude jokes they make require a certain arty underpinning. Walking into the New Mexico police station where they work, they observe, “Look at all those fu**ing a**holes working”; “Suckers.” Terry has a thing for Glen Campbell . Bob and his wife enjoy trading literary aphorisms and debating their origins. After finding a guy who’s pegged to be the driver in an upcoming heist, Bob accepts that perp’s bribe of a flat-screen TV and an XBox; the next scene shows the TV mounted above another TV; on the bottom screen, his two kids, including one comically obese one, are playing video games, while on the screen above it, Bob is trying to watch “ Out of Sight ,” a film, he explains to his wife is by the “Jewish-American auteur” Steven Soderbergh . His wife corrects him: “He’s Swedish.”

Do you find any of this funny? Because there’s so much more of it. Here’s an exchange between the film’s villain, Lord James Mangan, and his fey henchman, Birdwell ( Caleb Landry Jones , who clearly studied Gary Graham’s work in Paul Schrader ’s “ Hardcore ,” as well as every homophobic stereotype in a ‘70s Ken Russell film): 

“You know what the worst thing about jail is?” asks Lord James of Birdwell.

“No, your lordship.” “The violent anal sex. Do you know what the best thing about jail is?”

“The violent anal sex?”

“You’re pretty quick for an American.”

Trying to get in on some heist action, the fellows inveigle an ex-con who’s converted to Islam (at one point he’s seen playing a doubles match of tennis with two women in burqas, ar ar ar, but it’s not a racist joke because the women are superior players, ar ar ar) and once the con ( Malcolm Barrett , whose performance affords the movie its only measures of anything resembling fun) absconds with the money to Iceland, the movie’s plot complications turn more whimsical, necessarily.

But nothing here actually works, at least for any sustained amount of cinematic time. This is one of those movies in which the filmmaker has decided the fat jokes he’s putting in are, in fact, savage condemnations of fat jokes, but they’re really just fat jokes, and not very good ones at that. The Skarsgård character’s obsession with Glen Campbell is such a circa-1998-Tarantino-derivation that McDonagh, unless he’s completely brain-damaged, has to believe it’s a trans-dimensional meta lampoon of a Tarantino derivation, because there’d be no other reason to include it. AND YET, the way it actually plays is as a plain derivation. (The soundtrack also contains a Lee Hazelwood song and some other stuff that one of McDonagh’s assistants might have picked up for him on Record Store Day a couple years back.) Poor Tessa Thompson , of “ Creed ” and “ Dear White People ,” is here compelled to play a stripper who falls for Terry, and she’s depicted reading John Hersey’s “The Algiers Motel Incident,” just to show you that her character, and her character’s creator, are really above all this, which assertion begs certain questions.

Into the nothing-sacred dynamic, the movie eventually introduces a child pornography theme, which compels its wayward characters to do the right thing, or a right thing. Too little, too late. The Iceland-set scenes are very nice to look at though. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

War on Everyone (2017)

Rated R for violence, sexuality/nudity, drug use and pervasive language.

Michael Peña as Bob Bolaño

Alexander Skarsgård as Terry Monroe

Theo James as Lord James Mangan

Tessa Thompson as Jackie Hollis

Caleb Landry Jones as Russell Birdwell

Stephanie Sigman as Dolores Bolaño

David Wilmot as Pádraic Power

• John Michael McDonagh

Cinematographer

• Bobby Bukowski
• Lorne Balfe

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Film Review: ‘War on Everyone’

John Michael McDonagh delivers an American cop movie through Irish eyes, satirizing what passes for the law in the United States.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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Everything “War on Everyone” writer-director John Michael McDonagh knows about United States law enforcement he must have learned watching ’70s cop shows, while the rest of his outlook on the American way of life may as well have been cribbed from vintage photographs and Glen Campbell records. Not a bad mix of influences for the wicked-dark Irish satirist to recombine for his virgin foray abroad, a talky, sexy, irreverent and ultimately somewhat surreal buddy-cop movie in which two detectives one suspension shy of early retirement stick their noses into the middle of a million-dollar heist, hoping to bust the criminals and keep the loot for themselves. While his American competition practices the right to remain silent, McDonagh writes his clever, coal-black heart out, delivering another firecracker script, whose explosively entertaining execution boasts considerably more commercial potential than his previous two indies, “Calvary” and “The Guard.”

On the good-cop/bad-cop continuum, Albuquerque police detectives Bob Bolano (Michael Pena) and Terry Monroe ( Alexander Skarsgard ) are something of a paradox: What makes them effective is the fact that they don’t care. Bob has a gorgeous wife and two spoiled kids at home, but doesn’t think twice of risking such domestic bliss to shake down local scumbags — like the cocaine-dealing mime they run down in the opening car chase (hardly a fair match, considering the face-painted perp is on foot and the cops are behind the wheel of a classic blue Monte Carlo coupe). Making a lone exception for his Mexican partner, Terry otherwise hates everybody: He’s racist, misogynist and quite possibly nihilist to boot, explaining that he joined the force because “you can shoot people for no reason.”

While recent American headlines reveal that quip to be too often true, neither Bob nor Terry has ever killed a man. By the bloody end, “War on Everyone” will change all that, despite the stern talking-to the two partners receive on the subject of excessive force from their patience-strained police chief (Paul Reiser, in what turns out to be a decent, if unexpected, bit of casting for the former “Mad About You” star). Flagrantly disrespectful in the face of authority, Bob and Terry have reason to believe a handful of shady characters are gathering in town to organize a caper, and rather than inform their chief, they set out to crack the scheme, let the crime happen and then steal the dough — though they’re dim enough to stake out a downtown mosque when the actual heist happens, leaving three dead (by unprovoked police fire) and the money at large.

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But long before things go bad, their plan puts Bob and Terry in direct contact with exactly the kind of lowlifes they make it their duty to keep off the streets, whether that means snorting cocaine with a Muslim-converted, ex-con informant (Malcolm Barrett) or depriving a crooked goon (Geoffrey Pomeroy) of his cash, his flatscreen TV and his politically savvy, ex-stripper girlfriend (Tessa Thompson). Regardless of the task at hand, the pair make it clear that they don’t take the job all that seriously, unless they immediately stand to benefit — as they do when jetting off to pursue their “Willie Dynamite”-styled snitch all the way to Iceland (about as radical a change of scenery from New Mexico as one could find).

Showing up at a murder scene with cheeseburgers in their hands, Bob and Terry might as well have stepped out of a Quentin Tarantino movie or an Elmore Leonard novel — and though McDonagh shares some of the “Jackie Brown” director’s pop-culture-quoting habits, as Leonard adaptations go, it would seem he’s partial to Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight” (seen playing on the aforementioned flatscreen). Like Tarantino, McDonagh is a creative magpie, stealing juicy nuggets from any and everywhere, although he has considerably better taste — or, at the very least, proves to be far better read.

Ergo, in addition to such retro touches as horizontal wipes and a funk-music score (which composer Lorne Balfe manages to squeeze in between Glen Campbell ballads), you can expect McDonagh’s cheeky pastiche to include references to American history, Greek mythology and fun facts about famous suicides. What it doesn’t contain much of is simple, sensitive humanity, instead treating mortality like a joke and serious substance abuse like just another quirky costume flourish (despite his studly Swedish physique, Skarsgard slouches through most of the movie half-soused). If there’s one thing that connects the protagonists in McDonagh’s three features to date, beyond their brazenly non-PC sensibilities, it’s a certain Zen-like ambivalence about whether they live or die.

After “The Guard” and “Calvary,” McDonagh hinted that his next film would close out what he called his “glorified suicide trilogy,” and though that project is presumably still in the pipeline, the “War on Everyone” duo may as well share that same self-destructive spirit. As cops, they make the rules, and even when stripped of their badges, they’re not about to suddenly start following somebody else’s orders. As the investigation proceeds, they destroy a strip club, punch someone’s eye out and uncover a child pornography ring, ratcheting up the stakes until the only thing left to do is walk in, confront big boss James Mangan (a spoiled British lord played by Theo James, looking both dandier and more butch than James Franco) and his prissy right-hand stooge, Birdwell (Caleb Landry Jones, playing a more effeminate version of “Dirty Harry’s” Scorpio killer), in a good old-fashioned Mexican standoff.

Compared with some of the fancy action that has come before — heightened by stalwart editing partner (and former Danny Boyle collaborator) Chris Gill — the climactic shootout actually feels rather tame (probably not the word any of the victims would choose, especially the one Terry nails with one of his famous crotch shots). As with the racetrack heist itself, McDonagh opts not to dwell on the spectacle of bloodletting, but is clear to illustrate its aftermath. As such, “War on Everyone” makes a peculiar sort of statement, riffing on such violent genres as Westerns and cop movies, even as it questions why the country puts guns (and badges) into the hands of angry misfits. As Reiser quips at one point, “This is the police department. We’re surrounded by big fat racist pigs.” If Tarantino had said it, the police unions would have had even more reason to boycott his movie. Coming from across the Pond, the indictment feels doubly damning.

Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Panorama), Feb. 12, 2016. Running time: 98 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.) A Reprisal Films, Head Gear Films, Kreo Films FZ, Metrol Technology production, in association with Bankside Films, BFI. (International sales: Bankside Films, London.) Produced by Chris Clark, Flora Fernandez Marengo, Phil Hunt, Compton Ross. Executive producers, Fenella Ross, Elliot Ross. Co-producer, Elizabeth Eves.
• Crew: Directed, written by John Michael McDonagh. Camera (color), Bobby Bukowski; editor, Chris Gill; music, Lorne Balfe; music supervisor, Liz Gallacher; production designer, Wynn Thomas; art director, Billy W. Ray; set decorator, Edward McLoughlin; costume designer, Terry Anderson; sound, Bil Clement; sound designer, Phil Lee; supervising sound editor, Ian Wilson; special effects supervisor, David Greene; visual effects supervisor, Mark Wellband; visual effects producer, Fatemeh Khoshkhou; stunt coordinator, Josh Kemble; associate producer, Tom Harbend; assistant director, Dennis Crow; casting, Sarah Finn.
• With: Alexander Skarsgard, Michael Pena, Caleb Landry Jones, Malcolm Barrett, Tessa Thompson, Theo James, David Wilmot, Stephanie Sigman, Paul Reiser, Geoffrey Pomeroy.

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Dirty Cops - War on Everyone Reviews

McDonagh has made a self-aware, thinking person's dirty cop comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 5, 2022

About two corrupt policemen and the mess they get into when they take their bribery down a new direction.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2021

War on Everyone provides the most bang for your back next to recent entries in the genre.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 5, 2020

Skarsgard and Pena have great timing and an easy rapport that make the plot just a little more interesting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 12, 2019

Though it takes time for us to adjust to the films unique groove, and at times the tone veers about like the boys' flash car in hot pursuit, the pace never flags.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 5, 2019

There is no tension or surprise, it develops with little grace and stumbling between the commonplace and the politically incorrect joke, easy and very visible. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/10 | May 24, 2019

John Michael McDonagh fails to get anywhere near the heights of his hilarious debut The Guard, in this less-than-palatable buddy-cop movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 13, 2019

Interesting but not quite intriguing, War on Everyone manages to dance around classification as a misfire.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 10, 2019

McDonagh succeeds in crafting an unabashed black comedy that refuses to apologize for its actions. It is a film that will no doubt offend many, but will also have audiences laughing despite themselves.

Full Review | May 10, 2019

...it's supposed to be mutual attraction, but it feels more like coercion at the start.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | May 10, 2019

War on Everyone is glib and overwritten. At times it seems like bad Tarantino, but mostly it just seems bad.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | May 10, 2019

War On Everyone riffs voraciously on 70s thrillers and, reaching further back, the same kinds of hardboiled detective stories that have long fired Shane Black's imagination.

War on Everyone is more juvenile than McDonagh's previous films but it delivers a ton of laughs and he's pulled out two terrific performances from his lead actors.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 9, 2019

It's really and truly hard to find fault with the film as everything it wants to be and do is achieved superbly and to the quality we have come to expect from McDonough's unique and absorbing voice.

Skarsgård and Peña have excellent chemistry, both playing their roles with the perfect balance of seriousness and irony.

Full Review | May 9, 2019

Skarsgård's intense anger dominates the film. He's a revelation.

Although outwardly disappointing, it's not the case that War on Everyone is a total write-off.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 15, 2019

The opening sequences of War on Everyone are so furiously fast and funny it's nearly unimaginable that McDonagh can sustain the pace. And yet he does.

Full Review | Jan 9, 2019

War on Everyone seems mainly to be at war with its place in time, unsure if it's a 90's comic-thriller throwback, or a 70s cop show, borrowing elements from both which start out fun, but eventually drain the viewer.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 7, 2018

A nonstop assault on social conscience.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Nov 5, 2018

‘War on Everyone’ Review: Buddy-Cop Comedy Gets High on Retro Bad-Boy Supply

• By David Fear

Remember the Nineties? ? Specifically, that decade’s subgenre of films that proliferated during the A.T. (After Tarantino) era, the ones featuring retro-hip musical deep cuts and gallows-humor dialogue dotting horrific gunfights? Usually the antiheroes were criminals; in the case of writer-director John Michael McDonagh’s tart-tongued throwback, they’re police officers. And from the moment that Terry (Alexander Skarsgård) and Bob (Michael Peña) show up, chasing down a street performer – “Always wondered if you hit a mime, does he make a sound?” – you realize you’ve entered some sort of Lethal Weapon through the looking glass. Or rather, given the vintage muscle cars and funky opening-credits tune, a warped version of a Seventies TV cop show, complete with an informant character asking if he’s Huggy Bear. Tarantino used to talk about his aesthetic being informed by imagining old Starsky and Hutch episodes taken to their unfiltered extreme. Someone apparently took him literally.

War on Everyone ‘s plot – what we’ll call the string of incidents loosely connecting the verbose banter and violence, for brevity’s sake – pits these two mavericks against a vaguely continental bad guy ( Divergent ‘s Theo James, locked in a battle with a Sean Connery impersonation and losing) planning a big score. They’re also up against his fey, pasty lackey (Caleb Landry Jones, fey and pasty), numerous other underworld types, their exasperated chief (Paul Reiser), Bob’s nagging Xbox-obsessed sons, the concepts of sobriety and propriety, the notion of due process, basic human decency … we’ll refer you to the film’s title. An orphaned kid is introduced to make Terry seem slightly more likable. Tessa Thompson’s retired stripper character shows up to do a suspiciously sexy majorette routine and model hot pants. At one point, the action switches from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Iceland. Eventually, people pull firearms en masses on each other. Yes, they are most certainly fired.

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Mileage may vary depending on how fond you are of a Glen Campbell-heavy soundtrack and the chatty, chic nihilism that went out with the Clinton era. Still, if you crave the dodgy thrill of watching two degenerate detectives piss on Miranda rights, you could do a lot worse than spending 90 minutes huffing the fumes of this duo’s cracked chemistry. The idea of pairing Skarsgård and Peña for this kind of multiracial buddy-cop exercise is inspired; the former’s towering thin white drunk and the latter’s stocky Hispanic smart-ass complement each other nicely. And if you have a nostalgic itch for those pomo-pulp crime movies, you could not do better than having McDonagh at the wheel. Like the Irish-English filmmaker’s previous movies The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2016), his latest is fueled by a frenetic, foul-mouthed energy; like the work of his brother, award-winning playwright and fellow filmmaker Martin McDonagh ( In Bruges ), there’s a cheeky intellectualism behind all the profane tough-guy posturing. (John gives his sibling a cameo, in a Polaraid of Thompson’s exes. “He looks like a douchebag,” Skarsgård exclaims.)

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The sub-QT patter and ammo-heavy stand-offs have been always been an integral part of both McDonaghs’ voices, and despite the Southwestern U.S. setting, it’s an inherent Gallic fatalism that sets War apart from legions of imitators. This is not just a superior knock-off but a literate refinement of a formula, one that the director can tweak enough to organically include sex, drugs and namedropping André Breton, Yukio Mishima, Simone de Beauvoir and Pythagoras. It’s also a lot of guys reveling in being misanthropic assholes and pulling guns on each other, with everybody involved getting high on their own bad-boy-behavior supply. To paraphrase the Clash song that ends the movie, these gentlemen flout the law, and the law lost. For some folks, such retrograde pleasures have lost their bloody-knuckled charm. If this is still your bag all these years later and you wish the 1990s had never ended, however, then everyone wins.

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Review | War on Everyone

War on Everyone

What’s this?

War on Everyone is a film about two corrupt policemen and the mess they get into when they take their bribery down a new direction.

Sounds like the kind of film we’ve seen before

You know I’ve read another review where the film was described as “the thinking person’s Bad Boys “… I guess because this one isn’t about gratuitous macho posturing and explosions, but careful dialogue and plot. But for me, it came across more as the film-lover’s Bad Boys … There was so much to look at and appreciate about how it was made.

I’m talking beautiful landscapes – Iceland of all places! – wide shots to open a scene, and a striking long shot following the main antagonist through his mansion. (I admired that scene particularly; it was a neat device to show Lord James Mangan in his element, but also built up some extra tension.)

And the music was nicely chosen too, with rock and blues alternating with Glen Campbell; a selection which seemed largely bright and unusual for an action movie.

Okay, you liked the style. But what about the story?

Right. Terry and Bob (yes like the Likely Lads ) don’t take their jobs seriously; they do just enough policing to keep their career ticking along and put much more effort into extra-curricular activities to up their income. They hear about an upcoming heist from an informant and go sniffing for a fortune.

Not going to tell you any more about the plot, though: it’s worth watching carefully. How one thing leads to another isn’t spelled out clearly – your intelligence is assumed, dear viewer – but it also does meander somewhat between different groups of characters, locations, and elements of the plot, so do pay attention.

I know some have considered that meandering to be basically a mess, but not me: life’s like that! Sure, there were aspects of the writing and characters which were over-the-top and funny, but I really liked the air of going-with-the-flow that surrounded a good deal of the film:

• Informant has gone overseas? Never mind, we’ll find him.
• Can’t be arsed with parking carefully? Excuse for a good joke.
• Bloke we were looking for is dead? Oh well, finish your lunch.

This makes the characters – on the surface reckless louts – laissez faire and open-minded. And it’s an absolute breath of fresh air: so often we watch protagonists who know everything that’s going on or are capable of handling anything without warning/training/funds. We have just a little time to get to know these guys and then it is easy to accept them as they are.

Funny, I’ve heard that McDonagh writes about offensive loudmouths.

Prior to War on Everyone , John Michael McDonagh wrote and directed The Guard and Calvary , both in Ireland, and both starred Brendan Gleeson. Well, I can’t comment on his films in general – this is the first I’ve seen of his. Pretty much all the characters in this film say what they think without filters, for sure. But they’re not offensive in a “politically incorrect” sense: when Bob and Terry encountered someone they found unusual, they didn’t poke fun or insult them, but talked things through and simply accepted what they couldn’t work out.

Didn’t he make In Bruges as well?

No, that was his brother, Martin . Easy mistake. (See our Tyler’s review of Martin’s latest .)

And who was in  War on Everyone ?

So was it funny, exciting or what?

Not exciting as such, but colourful and entertaining throughout, and funny on and off. I laughed out loud several times – unusual for me – and I would happily watch it again for the colourful, careless joy of the film. Yeah, there were serious bits too – some  very serious – so I struggle to accept the comedy label. And a good deal of the violence was extreme. But all of it was just a little exaggerated, like an old-fashioned cops and robbers show, and terrifically engaging.

Not everyone found it so satisfying, though, did they?

No, indeed! This is a perfect example of mixed reviews… Some critics considered the protagonists shallow and over-the-top; though in my view they had breadth, just not much of it was relevant to the film. Some considered the plot aimless (and I’ve already addressed the “meandering” above)… but to me, it does progress, with a conclusion that shows a real change for the two main characters.

Recommendation

Watch it, for sure; but when you’re wide awake and able to both relish it all and pay good attention.

Article by Alix Turner

Alix joined Ready Steady Cut back in 2017, bringing their love for horror movies and nasty gory films. Unsurprisingly, they are Rotten Tomatoes Approved, bringing vast experience in film critiquing. You will likely see Alix enjoying a bloody horror movie or attending a genre festival.

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War on Everyone : EW review

Crass, senseless, and relentlessly talky, War on Everyone mostly seems like a movie at war with itself. Does it want to be Tarantino kitsch? A winky, post- Deapool satire of buddy-cop action comedies? A vaguely hip Naked Gun 4 1/2 ? Somehow, writer-director John Michael McDonagh ( Calvary ) managed to convince a raft of good actors—including Alexander Skarsgard, Michael Peña, Paul Reiser, and Creed ’s Tessa Thompson—that he had a master plan. What he has instead is a ratatat spray of one-liners, a crude wisp of a plot, and full access to Glenn Campbell’s back catalog.

Peña and Skarsgard are Bob Bolaño and Terry Monroe, New Mexico police officers who put the vice in vice squad, or something. Terry is woodblock-dumb, but also lonely at night in his bare-walled condo; Peña is a Sartre-spouting brainiac who smashes his own kid’s Xbox for fun. The duo run Albuquerque like Attilas with Ray-Bans and badges, smashing the company car into hapless robbery suspects, snorting contraband coke in pool-hall bathrooms, and facing off with a posh crime lord (Theo James) whose strip-joint-owning sideman (Caleb Landry Jones) is the kind of twitchy ambisexual weirdo that once would have been played by Crispin Glover or Udo Keir.

Somewhere in the next 100 minutes, there’s also a “Rhinestone Cowboy” dance sequence, a quick detour to Iceland, about 4,000 face punches, and a desert soliloquy about jellyfish. McDonagh manages a few moments of genuinely gonzo inspiration, but when you’re killing guys with katanas and making casual jihad jokes about women playing tennis in burqas, the War is probably already lost, friends. C+

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War on Everyone review – cops behaving badly

T his abrasive cop comedy is the cinematic equivalent of spending time with a very charming psychopath. You laugh a lot, but there’s always the chance you might get an unexpected headbutt during the course of the evening. The third film from John Michael McDonagh ( The Guard , Calvary ) is bitingly funny and unapologetically offensive. Terry Monroe ( Alexander Skarsgård ) and Bob Bolaño (Michael Peña) are a pair of New Mexico policemen who bring their own unique interpretation of justice to the job. But when the two most corrupt cops in the state take on the most unsavoury criminal in town, they find themselves out of their depth. The always excellent Peña is well suited to the role – he already partnered in a similar, if less dissolute, dynamic in End of Watch . Swedish heartthrob Skarsgård is a more unexpected casting but brings a persuasive deadbeat melancholy to the role of Glen Campbell-obsessed Terry, who joined the force because “you can shoot people for no reason”.

The crackling misanthropy of the screenplay is backed up by strong production values. The striking photography is infused with a 1970s vibe, which is heightened by McDonagh’s fondness for wipe edits. It’s not for everyone, certainly, but War on Everyone is a riot of bad behaviour.

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Review: A snarky, self-conscious cop thriller wages ‘War on Everyone’

Justin Chang reviews “War on Everyone” starring Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña. Video by Jason H. Neubert.

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Early on in “War on Everyone,” a gleefully flippant American cop thriller from the English writer-director John Michael McDonagh, Terry Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård), one of New Mexico’s not-so-finest, takes a moment to ruminate on the arts. Examining the walls of his lover’s bedroom, he spies a print of Andrew Wyeth’s 1948 painting “Christina’s World” and remarks on its eerie image of a young woman crawling over a grassy landscape.

No one points out that the woman in “Christina’s World” had polio — probably for the best, given the movie’s casual mockery of various other diseases and disorders, including multiple sclerosis and dyslexia. Nor is any mention made of the fact that Terry’s lover, Jackie (Tessa Thompson), is reading “The Algiers Motel Incident,” John Hersey’s account of a bloody 1967 clash between Detroit cops and rioters that left three black civilians dead.

For the record:

6:50 a.m. April 27, 2024 An earlier version of this review misspelled the last name of “The Algiers Motel Incident” author John Hersey as Hershey.

The book is just a winking, decorative touch in a movie that treats race, criminality and corruption with the same one-smirk-fits-all attitude.

Like so many crime movies conceived in the post-Quentin Tarantino, post-Guy Ritchie era, “War on Everyone” is a breezily impudent postmodern object — a fast and ferocious pileup of highbrow allusions and lowbrow insults, shoehorned in between intense episodes of coke-snorting and head-smashing. The guys responsible for much of the mayhem are Terry and his partner, Bob Bolaño (Michael Peña), two dirty detectives who give policing a very bad name, if also an enviable sense of style.

Dressed in snazzy three-piece suits, Terry and Bob spend much of their time driving around Albuquerque in a classic blue muscle car, leaving a trail of broken bottles and battered bodies in their wake. The colorful 1970s stylings of Wynn Thomas’ production design are clearly meant to remind us of that decade’s myriad contributions to the buddy-cop genre, from “The French Connection” to “Starsky & Hutch”; you may also flash back to last year’s ’70s-noir riff “The Nice Guys,” whose bumbling private eyes look like models of serious sleuthing next to the lead duo in “War on Everyone.”

Terry is ostensibly the wilder and crazier of the two, a handsome, heavy-drinking bachelor whose obsession with Glen Campbell accounts for much of the moody country we hear on the soundtrack. Bob, by contrast, is a family man and drive-by intellectual who can riff with ease on Steven Soderbergh and Simone de Beauvoir, though he shows no more restraint than Terry when presented with an opportunity to snort illegal substances or hit a mime with their car.

Eventually Bob and Terry’s foul-mouthed misadventures arrange themselves into a plot of sorts. A stern lecture on bribery and corruption from their exasperated police chief (Paul Reiser) doesn’t keep them from tailing a few goons who are plotting a heist at a downtown mosque — a crime that Bob and Terry aren’t interested in foiling so much as profiting from.

Their unconventional detective work does yield a few personal dividends. Terry steals the enchanting Jackie away from Jimmy (Geoffrey Pomeroy), one of a few crooks involved, while an informant named Reggie X (Malcolm Barrett) leads the duo on a whirlwind trip to Iceland, allowing for a cool blue respite from the warm orange tones of Albuquerque.

Eventually they bumble their way into a strip club run by a dapper British mastermind (Theo James) and his scarily intense henchman (Caleb Landry Jones), at which point the stakes finally get personal — or as personal as things get in a movie as determinedly weightless as this one. The title of “War on Everyone” doesn’t just offer a clue to the story’s final body count. It also sums up the movie’s sneering, anarchic attitude toward anyone and everyone — the various comically abused minorities include Quakers, Muslims, Japanese businessmen and transgender women — unfortunate enough to draw Bob and Terry’s fickle attention.

McDonagh came to international prominence with two Ireland-set, Brendan Gleeson-starring dramas, both touched by a distinct regional blend of pungent fatalism and bleak humor. If “The Guard” (2011) was a stylish but derivative police thriller, then “Calvary” (2014), in which Gleeson played a Catholic priest marked for death, was a major breakthrough: a grim whodunit that morphed into a deeply sincere contemplation of spiritual faith and human weakness.

In “War on Everyone,” his first picture set on American soil, McDonagh has taken one big step westward and several steps backward. The caustic streak that ran through his previous work never ruled out the possibility of authentic, compassionate feeling. But here, the change of scenery forces the writer-director to retreat into a highly strained, artificial world — one that, rather than becoming its own compelling alternate reality, is content to hold up a snarky funhouse mirror to the police procedurals of yesteryear.

It’s pleasurable enough to see Skarsgård and especially Peña, so often cast as a genial second banana, taking pride of place in their own vehicle, even if this one fails to make the most of their considerable chemistry. “We don’t live in your world,” Bob snarls at one of his many enemies. “You live in ours.” He may be right. But personally, I prefer Christina’s.

------------

‘War on Everyone’

Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes

MPAA rating: R for violence, sexuality/nudity, drug use and pervasive language

Playing: AMC Burbank Town Center 8, Burbank

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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War On Everyone review

Two renegade cops cause mayhem in the comedy-thriller, War On Everyone. Ryan explains why it's this year's don't-see film...

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The Guard and Calvary writer-director John Michael McDonagh seems to have set himself a creative challenge with his first US feature, War On Everyone. How do you make two borderline sociopathic renegade cops in any way likeable by the end of the movie? In McDonagh’s favour, he’s cast an effortlessly charismatic actor in one of the leads: Michael Peña, who plays bad cop number one Bob Bolaño.

Standing alongside him, hunched over into an uncomfortable looking position to better fit into the frame, is the chiselled Alexander Skarsgard as Terry, a wild-eyed, hard-drinking bruiser who specialises in knocking bad guys out with one punch. War On Everyone opens with Bob and Terry careening along in the latter’s classic muscle car in hot pursuit of a perp who happens to be a mime artist. This allows Bob to deliver the first of many wry quips: “If a mime gets hit by a car, does he make a sound?”

That’s not a bad gag, but like so much in War On Everyone, it’s a contrivance – a non-sequitur in a film packed full of one-liners, sight jokes and general bad taste designed to entertain in the moment rather than add much to the story. Why is Bob carrying one of those lucky waving Chinese cats in one scene? Because it looks funny. Why are there two women in burqas playing tennis with Skarsgard? So McDonagh can drop in a line about jihad.

There’s nothing wrong with scattershot comedy, but after The Guard, which so memorably transferred the staples of the buddy-cop thriller genre to sleepy western Ireland, War On Everyone feels disappointingly like a series of tic-filled characters and odd scenarios scrabbling around for a story.

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That story sees Bob and Terry – who in classic 70s and 80s style are constantly being bawled at by an angry chief (Paul Reiser) for their violent exploits –  on the trail of a corrupt businessman and porn baron (played by Theo James) and his army of goons, which includes Caleb Landry Jones as an effete, fuzzy-haired sidekick who looks like the genetic splicing of Scorpio out of Dirty Harry and Leo Sayer . Along the way, Terry has his head turned by an ex-stripper, Jackie (Tessa Thompson), while Bob balances his non-career in the police force with his life at home, which entails insulting his kids, breaking their games consoles and engaging in quasi-philosophical discussions with his wife, Delores (Stephanie Sigman).

War On Everyone riffs voraciously on 70s thrillers and, reaching further back, the same kinds of hardboiled detective stories that have long fired Shane Black’s imagination. Where McDonagh’s film partly falls down is in failing to establish an air of malaise in its modern-day Albuquerque. Movies like The French Connection and the aforementioned Dirty Harry worked because their anti-heroes’ violence and jaded natures were set against a backdrop of social disintegration. In other words, Dirty Harry was a nasty cop for a nasty city.

The city presented in War On Everyone has its fair share of sleaze – grubby bars, drugs, informants and so on – but there’s little in the way of danger to be found here. Instead, the most dangerous people in the city seem to be Bob and Terry, who actively enjoy bullying, belittling and brutalising whoever crosses their path. If they’re tortured souls – and there’s a half-hearted suggestion somewhere in the middle that Terry is – they don’t exactly suffer for their jobs. They live in unaccountably expensive houses and openly mock their fellow officers who actually try to be decent cops.

McDonagh’s too accomplished a writer and director to not land at least a few outright laughs, and for some, the politically-incorrect jokes and retro 70s stylings will be enough to justify the cost of a cinema ticket. But for this writer, the barbs aimed at homosexual and transgender characters feel too harsh for comfort, and coupled with the brutal violence – more often than not meted out by the heroes rather than the villains – leave a bitter aftertaste.

The self-consciously hip dialogue has its characters banter about art, classical literature, Greek mythology and Buddhism. There’s one name-drop conspicuous by its absence here: the Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand. Like the characters in her novels, Bob and Terry’s actions are driven exclusively by their own self-interest. Compassion is a joke, the law is meaningless. Only their personal wealth – and the safety of the partners they’ve chosen to protect – is of any concern to them. 

Everyone else – the weak, the fat, the bald, the short, the ugly, the foreign, the disabled – are of no consequence. If this is the true meaning behind the movie’s title, then War On Everyone is a bleak comedy indeed.

War On Everyone is out in UK cinemas on the 7th October.

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Ryan Lambie

War on Everyone (2016)

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Review: ‘War on Everyone’ Is Missing Some Crucial Components

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By Manohla Dargis

• Feb. 2, 2017

Squealing tires, firing guns, free-floating nihilism and an occasional look-at-me name check (Simone de Beauvoir) are all part of the package in “War on Everyone.” A compendium of strained talk and post-Tarantino clichés, this is a deeply disappointing new picture by the writer and director John Michael McDonagh, whose first two movies — “ The Guard ” and “ Calvary ” — popped with bright colors, splenetic jokes and actual ideas about people and the world. Mr. McDonagh’s palette and spleen remain mostly intact, but here he’s neglected to include a story or point.

Mr. McDonagh is fond of face-offs and showdowns, of two people going at it hammer and tongs, sometimes with a touch of philosophy and literal blunt instruments. Here, his dialecticians are Terry (Alexander Skarsgard) and Bob (Michael Peña), light-fingered Albuquerque detectives. They’re a regular Mutt and Jeff duo, except that they’re not funny or charismatic or much of anything at all. Mostly, they are just vaguely sketched conceits — jaded, corrupt, yammering — who look good in suits, smack around generic villains and make nice with the ladies.

Working with the cinematographer Bobby Bukowski, Mr. McDonagh splashes on the color (red walls, red blood), plays with negative space and at times crowds bodies into tight spaces, creating much-needed tension. His two stars are naturally appealing, but neither seems at ease with Mr. McDonagh’s writing, with its on-and-off rhythms, cliffhanger pauses and ugly slurs. There’s a nice scene in which Terry and Bob give chase, their dark bodies popping against the background, Mr. Skarsgard’s long limbs pinwheeling. And the 1970 Monte Carlo that Terry drives sure is sweet. Mostly, though, the Hobbesian war of the title feels as if it’s been waged by Mr. McDonagh alone.

Rated R for gun violence, a beheading and racial epithets. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes.

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War On Everyone Review

30 Sep 2016

War On Everyone

“It starts and ends with the script,” says one lowlife to another in War On Everyone , as they disapprovingly watch a low-grade porn flick. “If you ain’t got a good script, you ain’t got shit.” Fortunately, the person who wrote and directed this coal-dark crime comedy is John Michael McDonagh, the Irish auteur behind The Guard and Calvary . Both of those films are mordantly funny, unpredictable and set on the rain-moistened Emerald Isle. With his third feature, he has shifted locales to sun-baked New Mexico; but thankfully McDonagh’s delightful weirdness remains intact.

War On Everyone is a spin on maybe the most hackneyed genre of them all, the buddy-cop movie. The customary tropes are all in place: Terry and Bob ride around in their ice-blue Monte Carlo coupe bickering and stopping for cheeseburgers, reporting in sporadically to their grouchy superior (Paul Reiser). There’s a foot chase originating in a strip club and soundtracked by a Fun Lovin’ Criminals track, while another scene riffs on Beverly Hills Cop . But for every moment that seems derivative, there’s a winningly absurd scenario or inspired touch. Terry and Bob, whose names may or may not be a tribute to The Likely Lads , are introduced in hot pursuit of a mime. (“I’ve always wondered… if you hit a mime, does he make a sound?” ponders Terry, shortly before finding out.) There’s also a silly running joke involving our heroes’ ongoing feud with a SWAT team.

The bad-to-the-bones lead duo are joyously over-the-top.

The bad-to-the-bones lead duo are joyously over-the-top: Terry, who has thrush and swigs bottles of beer at breakfast, is a lawman so excessively immoral he even outdoes Chief Wiggum from the famous ‘Bad Cops’ skit in The Simpsons , while Bob makes for a fine foil as the family-man partner who’s far from squeaky-clean himself. The stars are clearly having fun, too — this is redemption for Skarsgård after his bland- Tarzan misstep this summer. The villains they’re up against, meanwhile, are intentionally a lot less funny, but memorably peculiar. Theo James, best known for his role in the Divergent series, comes close to stealing the whole show as louche, Homer-literate aristocrat-scumbag James Mangan, not least because he dominates the best shot of the movie as a Steadicam prowls with him through his debauched mansion. Only a late reveal involving him is misjudged, so bleak that it threatens to tip over the whole movie.

There are other flaws: some scenes aren’t nearly as funny as they think they are (an exchange about Steven Soderbergh’s Out Of Sight starts and ends without scoring a laugh) and the plot itself fails to build up much in the way of suspense. But McDonagh — cutting with old-school line-wipes, cranking up the Glen Campbell — is clearly having a blast. The feeling’s contagious.

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Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – War on Everyone (2016)

October 9, 2016 by Helen Murdoch

War on Everyone , 2016.

Directed by John Michael McDonagh. Starring Michael Pena, Alexander Skarsgard, Theo James, Tessa Thompson, Stephanie Sigman, Caleb Landry Jones, Malcolm Barrett, David Wilmot and Paul Reiser.

Two corrupt cops in New Mexico set out to blackmail and frame every criminal unfortunate enough to cross their path. Things take a sinister turn, however, when they try to intimidate someone who is more dangerous than they are. Or is he?

John Michael McDonagh’s third directorial effort following The Guard and Calvary is deliciously dark, hilarious, ludicrous and great fun. Headed up with two great comedic performances from Michael Pena and Alexander Skarsgard, War on Everyone isn’t to everyone’s taste but those who love McDonagh’s style will appreciate this offbeat comedy.

Bob (Pena) and Terry (Skarsgard) are the worst cops imaginable. Based down in New Mexico, they take bribes, do drugs, beat the crap out of people – or as Terry says “let’s go fuck some scumbags” – and basically frame everyone they meet. Things take a sinister turn when they come up against intimidating Brit mastermind James Mangan (James) who might be too powerful for them. The plot is convoluted and not all the jokes work, but the journey you go on with these two awful characters is hugely entertaining.

Michael Pena is perfect as family man Bob. He’s vulgar, despicable yet still loveable and he delivers some great one liners. Redeeming himself after a lacklustre performance in The Legend of Tarzan , Skarsgard proves to be a quality comedic actor from pratfalls through to expertly delivered quips. Terry is an alcoholic overgrown man child who loves Glenn Campbell and violence. There isn’t a lot of depth to these characters and anyone who wants to find out why they hate everyone will be disappointed. Terry gets some back story and has a bit of development towards the end of the film, but mainly it’s two guys working through a convoluted and razor sharp script.

Stellar support is provided by McDonagh regular David Wilmot as the perpetually unlucky and hilarious shell suit wearing Padraic Power. As with so many films the villain James Mangan is completely one dimensional but Theo James excels in the role and his delight in cutting someone’s head off with a samurai sword is fantastic.

War on Everyone is more juvenile than McDonagh’s previous films but it delivers a ton of laughs and he’s pulled out two terrific performances from his lead actors.

Flickering Myth Rating: Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Helen Murdoch

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War on Everyone Review: Film’s Darkest Director Finds Something to Laugh About

By Joanna Robinson

Irish writer/director John Michael McDonagh blew the film world away with his 2011 directorial debut The Guard and made an equally-impressive and bleak follow-up with 2014’s Calvary . But in War on Everyone , which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival Saturday night, McDonagh leaves behind both misty Ireland and his two-time leading man Brendan Gleeson in favor of sunny New Mexico and a nattily-dressed buddy cop duo played by Michael Peña and Alexander Skarsgård . The film is a fast-paced caper in grand 1970s style with non-stop sharp comedy that keeps the tone light even as the subject matter goes pitch-black.

Skarsgård—who is having a brilliant post- True Blood hunk career as an indie film star—plays Terry Monroe an alcoholic, Glen Campbell-loving insomniac with a damaged past and, possibly, a death wish. Hunching his lean 6’4” frame into a knuckle-dragging gorilla posture, Skarsgård as Terry is rarely sober, always spoiling for a fight, and delivers joke after joke in a melodious deadpan. Peña’s Bob Bolaño is the more educated of the detectives and, as he handily proved in Ant-Man , there is no line in existence that Peña can’t put a hilarious, fast-paced spin on.

Any doubts about whether the character “Bolaño” is a reference to the famous Chilean novelist evaporate as Terry, Bob, and their love interests ( Tessa Thompson and Stephanie Sigman respectively) trade jokes about everything from French feminist Simone de Beauvoir to mid-century painter Andrew Wyeth. This might be McDonagh’s most mainstream movie yet, but he isn’t afraid of his characters’ intelligence.

Terry and Bob—unabashedly corrupt and fresh off a suspension—are drawn into a race track heist plot straight out of Elmore Leonard. ( Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight gets a lengthy, loving riff in case you thought McDonagh wasn’t fully aware of his own cultural references.) Colorful characters like a track-suit-wearing pair of petty criminals ( Malcolm Barrett and David Wilmot ), a well-dressed ominous English lord ( Theo James ), and his terrifying, effete henchman ( Caleb Landry-Jones ) help the movie achieve a stylish Tarantino-esque vibe. (That vibe is only reinforced when Terry and Bob chow down on burgers after busting open a door with guns drawn.)

The era-defying costumes (particularly on Landry-Jones), the old fashioned cars, the funk-music score, and retro horizontal wipes and canted angles all give War on Everyone a place outside of time that helps some of the more abrasive comedy go down smoothly. Audiences should prepared for anyone and everyone to get mocked, beaten, and cut down to size. As McDonagh pointed out when introducing the film Saturday night, the movie’s title should serve as a warning here. This is not a movie for the easily offended. But before the action of the film starts, Monroe and Bolaño were suspended for defending Bob against their fellow “big, fat, racist pig” cops. And whether it’s a quick-yet-progressive meditation on transgender issues or Terry’s interracial romance with Tessa Thompson’s Jackie, it’s clear that while these corrupt cops are willing to mock anyone they meet, their humor doesn’t come from a place of hate.

Crucially, though Terry and Bob are mostly out for themselves, they also do their fair share of white-knighting. When women are threatened, or the depth of abuse inflicted on a kid is revealed, Terry and Bob saddle up and ride off into the night to face death head on. Here, as he did with The Guard and Cavalry , McDonagh dives into existential ennui. Bob and Terry may love their families, cars, three-piece suits, Glen Campbell records, and flatscreen TVs, but when it comes to staying alive, the pair seem much more ambivalent. Even when he makes a mainstream, foul-mouthed comedy, McDonagh can’t help going deep.

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Movie Review: War on Everyone

Movies about corrupt cops are usually highly dramatic and action-packed affairs. But one thing they usually depict is a cop, or cops, seeking to clear their name from the corruption that appears to stain it, or leaning into it as they’re either the villain or the antihero that is the main point of the movie. The dark humor that’s present in War on Everyone kind of highlights how hard the movie is leaning into the idea that Terry and Bob are corrupt cops and aren’t trying to hide it. What’s funny is that they’re trying to manage their own lives while doing everything they can to do the wrong thing, which gets them paid, but also gets them in trouble. As the movie makes its slightly ponderous way forward though it’s fair to say that this is the way they like it, especially since they don’t try to change. One might think that this would make for a dull movie, and unfortunately, it kind of goes that way eventually as the movie doesn’t really set up a huge and noticeable redemption arc. 

What it does is to eventually show how Terry and Bob’s lives do even out, kind of, as the movie rolls along. The fact is that the movie has just enough excitement to it that one might feel the need to watch it from start to finish to make certain that they’ve seen all there is to see. But despite the performances of the actors, which are easily good enough to keep a person watching, it’s still just as easy to look elsewhere while the movie is going since the overall story is, well, kind of lackluster. The whole idea of two corrupt cops that know they’re corrupt and don’t worry about the idea of trying to clear their names is kind of different, but it’s also something that one can’t help but think needs a bit of balance to it. 

Watching this movie for long enough makes it clear that such a thing isn’t going to happen since even leaning into the family life of the two main characters makes it clear that any redemption that other characters might spurn or work toward isn’t present in this movie. These cops are made to be bad and they’re proud of what they do. There is a method to the madness, but it’s also made clear throughout the movie that the method is to add to the madness, not shy away from it. Things continue to move along in a manner that many might think would indicate that the main characters are, at one point, going to mee with a demise that’s glorious but still well-earned, or that they’ll continue to be the same people they are and for some reason get rewarded for it. Such stories can confuse those that aren’t used to them, especially since the main idea with many cop movies is that the cops will end up paying for their misdeeds and not get to ride off into the proverbial sunset, or they’ll reform and realize how wrong they were for doing whatever they did. This isn’t that kind of movie, and it’s made rather clear from start to finish. 

Terry and Bob know what they’re doing is wrong, they know that they’re making the wrong moves, and yet they continue to make them as things roll forward. That is a big part of what makes the movie intriguing since otherwise, it might be a little too boring of a story to get anyone’s attention. Something about this movie makes it easy to keep watching, even if it doesn’t hold a person’s interest the entire way through. The fits and starts that come throughout this movie are kind of tough to deal with for an action movie since the balance and the flow sometimes feel as though it’s off-kilter and has a tough time catching up. Talking about the story is easily done within a few lines since it’s essentially about two corrupt cops that are bound and determined to do whatever it takes to bring down a man that apparently can’t be touched by the law while getting what they need in the same place. 

Bashing the movie isn’t necessary, but explaining how it appears to thrive on the broken pace that is felt as the feature moves forward is bound to be taken as a matter of opinion. Some folks are bound to like this movie thanks to the actors, others might enjoy the action, and some will end up liking the overall story. Personally, it’s not that bad of a story, but it feels broken in a way that needs to be resolved with a few simple tweaks that might be able to bring it back into line. But then again, a broken story is a matter of perception that needs to be taken as-is sometimes. 

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A lover of great stories and epic tales, Tom is a fan of old and new-school ideas. As a novelist and a screenwriter, he enjoys promoting one story or another. With 18k+ articles and 40 novels written, Tom knows a little something about storytelling.

Movie Review: “War on Everyone”

I’m such a huge fan of both of the McDonagh boys — playwright turned writer-director Martin (“In Bruges”, “Seven Psychopaths”) and his brother John Michael (“Calvary,” “The Guard”) that I’m willing to write-off “War on Everyone” as a pastiche that didn’t pay off.

It’s written and directed by John Michael McDonagh as a send-up of Quentin Tarantin o, sort of a QT film created by an educated, literary-minded Irishman. It’s a fiasco, but there’s stiff the occasional riff, rant or reference that works.

It’s a modern-day “rogue cops” picture, set in Albuquerque amidst hoodlums, lowlifes, sand and unflattering sun. As in a Tarantino take on the subject, it’s built around  characters trapped in the ’70s.

Detectives Terry Monroe ( Alexander Skarsgard ) and Bob Bolaño ( Michael Peña ) tool around town, swilling beers in a ’72 Monte Carlo, which Monroe is always crashing into bars they’re about to bust up, but is always fully restored by the next scene.

“I LOVE this car,” Monroe has to say, and who wouldn’t?

Monroe’s into old Glen Campbell tunes and lives in a designer house with a pool — in Albuquerque. How can he afford this?

“Overtime.”

They have a snitch, Reggie X (he’s converted to Islam) who isn’t keen on his role.

“Who am I? ” Reggie (Malcolm Barrett) wants to know. “Huggy Bear?”

They have a boss (Paul Reiser), the sort of commanding officer who is always railing at them.

“This is your LAST chance!”

They’re corrupt and cruel. Yeah, they do a few lines of blow with their snitch. Yeah, they’re trigger happy. Yeah, they steal from “the bad guys. And yeah, they run over a mime.

They have no morals or principles. Bust a crook who gets killed? One of them will take up with the dead guy’s girlfriend. She’s played by Tessa Thompson (“Creed”) in ’70s hair and hotpants.

The boys are after Mr. Big, a rich Brit punk (Theo James) called “Your Lordship” by his minions. There are gay underlings played by  Caleb Landry Jones  and  David Wilmot, a sort of inclusive inclusion that almost has a point, at least as far as the plot’s concerned.

And all of it is pitched as a lark, a paint-by-numbers genre pic spiced up with McDonagh’s Tarantino-ish quips and long tirades. A character complains he can’t read their badges because he has dyslexia.

“Are you an actor? All actors seem to be dyslexic nowadays. Used to be called ‘stupidity.'”

And “You’re cops? Where are you guys from? What precinct?”

“We’re from Hell.”

And on and on, discourses on Simone de Beauvoir and Quaker ethics and the whether the “auteur” (director) Steven Soderbergh is Jewish or Swedish.

Minions use words like “contretemps” and the action is stopped for a game of tennis (doubles) with two Muslim women in full burqas.

It’s funny to see  Peña  playing the “smart funny partner” instead of the dumb one. Skarsgard brings nothing new to the alcoholic crooked cop cliche and Thompson has nothing to play but pretty pouty close-ups in various stages of undress.

McDonagh’s script is so ad hoc, so clumsily random, that nothing adds up to anything. There’s just violence and strip clubs and one-liners that are more clever than funny and Glen Campbell’s Greatest Hits and that lovely blue Monte Carlo.

Neither McDonagh brother (John Michael is the eldest) works often enough that their fans can afford a misfire of this magnitude. And while taking the Irish out of Tarantino is a worthy cause, you’re going to have to bring at least your B-game to that quip fight. This never rates as more than a D.

Cast:Alexander Skarsgard, Michael Peña , Tessa Thompson, Theo James, Paul Reiser

Credits:Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. A Saban Films release.

Running time: 1:38

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Civil War Review: Alex Garland's Terrifying War Movie Will Leave You Shaken [SXSW 2024]

The most disarming thing about writer/director Alex Garland's "Civil War" is its deliberate, harrowing sense of neutrality. Here is a major movie, one of the biggest ever produced by studio A24 , about a brutal civil war being fought on three fronts in the modern United States, being released into theaters during a period of intense political unrest that chooses immersion over perspective. It's a choice that doesn't always click throughout the film's running time, but it pays off in a big way during the film's harrowing, terrifying final act.

Those hoping to have their personal beliefs mirrored in one way or another, to have Garland pick a side and validate a certain point of view, will be left wanting. And those hoping for a movie that is more loudly specific about its intentions may find its intentionally vague politics to be a cop out. But the key to "Civil War" lies in the choice of protagonists. Garland largely tells the story from the perspective a group of journalists traveling a war-ravaged America in search of a big story in the final days of the conflict. They're an objective bunch — the nature of their job demands it, as they float between several sides of the conflict to capture what's going on — and the movie follows suit.

"Civil War" is less about the politics of right now, and more about the horror that accompanies a world beyond politics, where all meaning gets lost in gunfire and smoke. No one knows what they believe at this point, and no one even discusses why they're fighting anymore. It's not a film about a divided America in the sense that we, folks doom scrolling in 2024, think of it. It's a film about how all of that ceases to matter when the violence starts. What the hell were we fighting about anyway?

The road trip movie from hell

All of Garland's films blend disconcerting horror and staggering beauty, and "Civil War" doesn't buck the trend. Like the veteran war photographer Lee (played with a understated toughness by Kirsten "Hey, I've Been Undervalued For Years And Now I'm Going To Strut My Stuff" Dunst ), Garland's camera recognizes the unusual beauty and surreality that can accompany images of tremendous stress and terror. Quick flashes of joy and humanity accompany a visit to a refugee camp, where people seem happy to just be alive. Snipers casually patrol the roofs of small towns. One especially unsettling sequence, a standoff with a sniper at a long-abandoned roadside Christmas experience, is the kind of haunting scene that gives the film its specific nightmare heartbeat. Something so typical and tacky, something so American, becomes the site of total inhumanity.

As Ellie and her crew head south, hoping to reach Washington D.C. to secure an interview with the President of the United States before the capital falls, the film follows a familiar road trip formula. Some vignettes are more effective than others. Some pit stops are little short stories unto themselves, a "day in the life" of these four journalists as they struggle to do their jobs. Others exist to just let characters tell each other their life stories (the weakest moments of the film, frankly). A few allow Garland, who expressed such a fascination with the corruption of worlds both natural and manmade in films like "Annihilation" and "Ex Machina," to just turn his camera toward impossible, startling imagery and to just let us exist in it all.

It's no accident that these images, among the most haunting of the film, often barely draw the eyes of the folks on the screen. It's that objective voice that steers the film from frame one — this is their reality now, they've seen this before, and they're on the hunt for something bigger. And hopefully something final.

A warning from a world too-much like our own

As a road trip movie, "Civil War" is quite good, with some segments proving more enthralling than others. Dunst is the standout among the cast, keeping us anchored through the more episodic elements, but Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Cailee Spaeny contribute strong work (with Jesse Plemons and Nick Offerman showing up in well-utilized cameos). However, "Civil War" roars to a different kind of life in its third act, as our battered journalists find themselves in the middle of a proper war zone, embedded with troops, and struggling to survive as they document the biggest moment in (fictional) American history. These scenes contain a rare and special power, and they pay off because of Garland's specific perspective choices, and his decision to leave clearly identifiable politics at the door. Everything that led to this feels so small now.

In its own weird way, "Civil War" is a science fiction movie, an alternate history tale of the biggest thing to happen in the United States since the Revolutionary War. And in a weirder way, it plays out like a movie that was made in an alternate reality, a film where this already happened, and where the most dramatic, iconic, horrible moments are so fresh, so embedded in the minds of a theoretical audience, that no exposition or world-building is necessary. We bear witness to monumental turns of events, and they're filmed through a lens that yes, of course we recognize this moment. We all saw it on the news. It's in all the textbooks now. Everyone knows that photo.

So when the film asks us to accompany the characters into one of the most relentless war sequences of recent years, there's an unusual sense of decorum. We're bearing witness to an exacting recreation of historical events that haven't actually happened. And we, the audience from this reality, are asked to take it all as a warning. This is the movie that gets made if we don't fix our sh*t. And these events, recorded with such raw reality by Garland and his crew, are exactly what we want to avoid at all costs.

/Film Rating: 8.5 out of 10

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Movie Review: ‘Civil War’

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“Civil War” presents one of the most intriguing premises of the year, maybe of the last several years: what if Texas and California were to secede from the United States and join forces to wage war against their former home country? In short, everyone would lose. The economy would tank so badly that $300 would buy you a ham sandwich or cheese sandwich – but not both. There wouldn’t be a sports stadium left for sports and no crisis centers. Violence and death would lurk around every corner. And needless to say, things would be a nightmare for the press.

Kirsten Dunst stars as Lee Smith, a hardened photographer. She’s not without her compassionate side, giving her life-saving press jacket to stranger Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) during a riot in New York City. But otherwise, she is fearlessly committed to bringing America (whatever that means anymore) the truth about the war.

She and her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) set off to Washington D.C. to get what will likely be the final interview with the President (Nick Offerman) before advancing Western forces inevitably take him. The two are joined by occasionally annoying tagalong Jessie and veteran reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson, always a great scene-stealing presence, and here making the most of his most high-profile role to date).

Much of “Civil War” is a glorified road trip movie largely set in rural areas, which I suppose makes sense since the movie can’t afford to show major cities getting torn to pieces in every scene. But the small-scale villains are even scarier than the large-scale ones, with fewer authorities than ever around to keep them in check.

The team visits a gas station where thieves are tortured for as long as the captors can have fun torturing them. Even worse is a militia group filling a mass grave of civilians that were probably not killed as an act of war, but whose disappearance will probably be lazily blamed on the war.

“Civil War” can’t be bothered to answer all the questions it raises, like those involving the origins of the war. Given that Texas and California are the states that seceded, I can only assume that immigration was a major factor, though details are left unclear. Not all the violence in this movie is about the war anyway, some people just want an excuse to shoot people they don’t like. Advertisement

In fact, it’s not necessarily people they don’t like – some people just want an excuse to shoot people regardless of what they represent. Humanity is forever on the edge of destroying itself from within and all that.

Watching “Civil War” reminded me of “The Purge” with its mass violence, with or without sense. That franchise started out as a pretty standard home-invasion thriller with lots of bells and whistles about the overlying concept of The Purge that wasn’t really necessary for the small-scale conflict.

The sequels got deeper into why people needed to kill for reasons other than revenge, while at the same time expanding the scale of the action with ever-growing budgets. Maybe there’s a future for “Civil War” as a franchise. The sequels will need to spend more money, though, because the D.C.-set finale of this movie looks rushed and cheap.

“Civil War” might be onto something as the first chapter in a series that will have many sequels and prequels. On its own, however, I found it bland. There are certainly some powerful scenes, like one with an unbilled Jesse Plemmons as a militia member chillingly doling out death sentences according to his whims.

The stars of Moura, Spaeny, and Henderson are deservedly going to rise thanks to their performances here, though I can’t be the only one who walked out of the theater thinking that Spaeny’s character was responsible for too many deaths for her character to be likable. I can’t say the film lives up to the ambitiousness of its premise, but with more world-building in future installments, there’s potential here for a memorable dystopian future.

“Civil War” is rated R for strong violent content, bloody/disturbing images, and language throughout. Its running time is 109 minutes.

Contact Bob Garver at [email protected].

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Review: Alex Garland's 'Civil War' is an Exercise in Narrative Emptiness

by Alex Billington April 15, 2024

"What kind of American are you? You don't know?" Now that it's playing in theaters, Civil War is one of these movies where everyone must have a very strong Opinion™ about and make sure everyone else hears it. Every moviegoer just HAS to chime in and join the discussion. So here I am throwing my hat into the ring, so to say, with my own critical thoughts. Does it matter? Will anyone care? I doubt it, but of course I've got something to say about this movie. We all do . I'm joining the chorus in continuing to emphasize that I really believe Civil War is an empty movie and that's not a good thing. Aside from the apolitical narrative of "we're going to follow these supposedly objective war photographers" there's really nothing else new or interesting or unique it's saying about war. It is just another bland war movie, regurgitating every last war movie trope but setting in America this time. Thus the pertinent question becomes, " why? " Why set it in America? What is it saying about America's might-really-happen next Civil War? Not much of anything at all, unfortunately.

First things first, I cannot say Civil War is a bad movie in regards to the filmmaking. Written & directed by British writer & director Alex Garland , and featuring cinematography from British DP Rob Hardy , this war movie is slick and thrilling. The pacing is riveting and unsettling - going from intense, harrowing scenes to quieter, more peaceful moments. Yet the rumbling of war and the threat of what might be waiting around the corner always looms. Just like every other war movie ever made… This time, however, it's set in the very possible a-second-civil-war-is-now-underway America. Which is especially relevant & frighteningly realistic as a concept, so much so that I don't think it's proper or right to call this movie sci-fi . There is not much imaginative fiction in it beyond the idea that this civil war hasn't actually happened yet . The performances especially from both leads Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny are strong and compelling, even if they are the cliche yin vs yang of experienced vs newcomer war photographers. Stephen McKinley Henderson as the wise and hardened Sammy, though, steals the show and is the only really great character in this movie.

This brings me to my primary frustrations with Civil War . It's especially ironic to say I "enjoyed" the action in this because it seems the only coherent point that Alex Garland wants to make is that all this killing and all this awfulness of war is bad and we should not enjoy it (as we often do in other war movies) because once it comes to your own backyard it will make you want to puke, too. Such an original thought that, well, every other war movie has had, too. As I feared, Civil War is dangerously careless and unpleasant in its apolitical conceit. It's so bitterly obvious Garland's pitch was: "you know all those Middle East civil war journalists-go-there movies, I want to make that but set it in America" though it has nothing more to say anyway. War is bad! Yeah, we know. Your friends will die! Yeah, we know. Journalism is important! Yeah, we know. No side wins when everyone is killing each other! Yeah, we know. Every war movie trope ever + America doesn't make it interesting. That's what is so annoying about it… Ignoring the crucial politics of WHY war happens (*continues to happen) and thinking if you show us, for the 1000th time in cinema, that both sides are doing bad things by killing the other side, we'll all stop fighting and prevent more wars is not helpful nor effective.

Let me make a controversial statement - it's exceptionally naive for anyone to think that just because there's another movie in theaters now depicting with cinematic realism how very bad and horrible and violent war always is, we'll all prevent the next one before it begins. Really? After 100 years of other (better) war movies why are we all still ending up in more wars? Perhaps because refusing to address that "why" more honestly (and, let's be honest, by clearly showing that there is a good and a bad side no matter what some believe) is the reason we're still all shooting each other in the streets… Just look around right now - the war in Ukraine, the atrocities in Gaza, shootings daily in America, etc. Did any of these war movies before stop any of this? Does showing someone a war movie not make them want to fight for something in the real world that deeply matters to them? Nope. That's why setting this in America and making it seem more relevant to those who can only be scared because it is set in America weakens the message and the entire concept. And let's not be so foolish as to think that the journalism they're depicting in this movie is making a real difference either. Unfortunately that era is over. When in this movie does their journalism actually make a difference? Never.

In one interview , Garland actually said that "polarization is not a good thing" is ultimately the movie's entire message. Once again, this isn't anything new or surprising or revealing. Alas, he refuses to grapple with the polarization, where it comes from, how it grows, etc. He never wants to dig into this topic despite making an entire movie set around Americans fighting themselves because of polarization. Once again, what is there left to consider if it's not enjoyable to watch this action. I find it especially strange how so many people have reacted to Civil War as if it is the most horrifying war movie they've ever seen, which speaks to their myopic bias towards America and refusal to consider anything beyond its borders as being as important as whatever is happening in America. I can watch Come and See or Apocalypse Now or The Battle of Algiers and feel as unsettled about war not in America. Even the last few years there have been more interesting war journalist movies - Bruno Dumont's France or Agnieszka Holland's Mr. Jones or Matthew Heineman's A Private War .

There are a multitude of different interpretations and reactions to Civil War and what it means and what it's really about. Is it actually about America or just set in America? Is it about war? Is it about journalism? Is it about trying to be neutral? No matter what any of these viewers claim, it never seems to really explain why this movie is more effective or engaging than any other war movie. Nor do these reactions justify the movie's ultimate message that is supposed to be "both sides are bad, polarization is bad, let's not let this happen." Showing war photographers doing their job only reminds us that they are a necessary part of covering war, not stopping war, or preventing war, because in all these centuries of humanity having books & newspapers, we still haven't been able to stop ending up in more wars. I wish there was something more going on in here. I wish it had something more to say about America – or war, or how to prevent it. Much like his last movie Men , it's so empty and ultimately meaningless I don't want to discuss it further. So many other war movies have handled this better, so many other movies about war photographers have dug into this better. After a few months we're all going to forget this movie and go back to reading real life updates on more war anyway.

Alex's Rating: 5 out of 10 Follow Alex on Twitter - @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd - @firstshowing

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Movies | ‘challengers’ review: tennis, everyone zendaya keeps a juicy romantic triangle spinning.

A little delirious and a lot of serious, witty, stylish fun, “Challengers” plays a beautiful game of Canadian doubles with its three main characters, on and off the court. It’s a purely enjoyable romantic drama, and the one thing people seem to agree on is its deft sidestepping of easy labels. Is it a screwball dramedy, as one writer put it? A sports movie dripping with competitive juices? Or simply that extremely rare thing in 2024 movies: an R-rated picture, written by a terrific first-time screenwriter, Justin Kuritzkes, not a sequel, not a Marvel, not much like anything we’ve seen lately in mainstream commercial filmmaking.

The director Luca Guadagnino continues his streak as one of contemporary cinema’s most florid sensualists, though it’s something of a shock, or a joke, to see the latest Guadagnino picture open with a comically drab establishing shot of New Rochelle, New York. It’s not exactly Milan or Lombardy, Italy, where Timotheé Chalamet and Tilda Swinton, respectively, found ecstasy among flora, fauna and tantalizing sexual partners in “Call Me By Your Name” (2017) and  “I Am Love” (2009). But this is the site of the second-tier challenger tennis match, where one-time phenom Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), now broke, is vying for a few thousand dollars in prize money.

Also vying, quite unexpectedly: Patrick’s longtime now-estranged friend and certified tennis champ Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), whose recent cold streak has brought him to New Rochelle to score a wildcard confidence boost prior to his U.S. Open bid. Art doesn’t love the idea, but he loves his cutthroat coach and wife, Tashi, a one-time teen tennis phenom. And the idea is hers. And she is played by Zendaya.

Without giving the whole game, set and match away “Challengers” starts with teasing questions not unlike those posed by the opening late-night bar scene in Celine Song’s “Past Lives” (Song is screenwriter Kuritzkes’ wife, and it’s delightful to see both halves of a screenwriting couple score with their feature debuts.) The year is 2019; we’re plunked into the middle of a tense winner-take-all match between Josh and Art, with Tashi keeping an eagle eye on both men. What are they to each other? What’s their history? From there, the movie begins jumping back in time, and forth, and then a little back, a little forth, spanning the characters’ college-age years to the present.

In the furthest-back scenes, the boys meet the superstar Tashi at a swank Long Island Adidas endorsement bash and are smitten in the time it takes to type the word “smitten.” In Art and Patrick’s hotel room later on, Tashi coaxes some pertinent information about their story, how they met (tennis camp, age 12), are they or were they ever lovers (no, but both script and direction in “Challengers” challenges any strict binary notions of the sexual continuum). She’s amused and enticed, a little, at her admirers’ insta-crushes on her, which leads to the story’s three-way spark.

From there it’s a crafty series of reveals, not in the murder-mystery or twist-ending sense, but in revealing what quieter, more reserved Art and brash, arrogant Patrick will do, and have done, to undermine each other’s chances with Tashi. As conceived by Kuritzkes, Zendaya’s character might’ve settled for caricature, ruthless manipulation incarnate — Svengali’s tennis coach, if Svengali played tennis.

But “Challengers” makes surprisingly dimensional sense of that she-wolf archetype, finessed and humanized by Zendaya. The role hands her a welcome change of pace, so she can ditch the narcotic “Dune” vibe for a couple of hours and dig into some tart, testy, sharp-witted scenes with Faist and O’Connor. The interplay is loose, yet exacting; it’s a pretty sexy movie, and Guadagnino films the key encounters in long, uninterrupted takes, the actors hinting at what’s going on underneath the surface dialogue. These people are not noble. Their relational scruples are optional. Their lives are racquets, balls and winning. They do what they need to do to get what they want.

The forth-and-back narrative chronology in “Challengers” proves more useful and engaging than it sounds. It keeps us guessing about motives and the dramatic equivalent of break points. On the court, Guadagnino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom activate the rallies to varyingly delirious degrees, at one point turning the camera into the tennis ball, back-forth-back-forth-topspin-back. The Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross techno score drives the action. Is it all a bit much? Toward the end, key flashbacks unfold against the backdrop of a windstorm that just won’t quit, and Guadagnino cannot resist every possible screw-tightening suspense tactic in the final stages of the court battle.

That said: Even the excess has its payoffs, though I don’t know if audiences will swing with the degree of ambiguity going on with the final seconds of this exuberant, eccentric horndog of a movie. I also don’t care much. It’s one of the essential titles of the year so far, if only for its sheer kinetic assurance.

“Challengers” — 3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language throughout, some sexual content and graphic nudity)

Running time: 2:11

How to watch: Premieres in theaters Fri. April 26

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

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We Can’t Stop Talking About ‘Challengers’

Senior Culture Reporter, HuffPost

Black Voices Editor, HuffPost

Senior Culture Reporter

For months, we’ve been getting full court press (pun intended) for “Challengers.” Originally slated for a fall 2023 release but delayed when writers and actors went on strike for more equitable working conditions, at long last, we have arrived at what is probably the buzziest movie so far this year.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, “Challengers,” according to social media, is the “Zendaya tennis love triangle (and maybe threesome?) movie.” (We’ll get into why this is reductive in a moment.)

The movie’s marketing has relied heavily on its star power: Zendaya stars as tennis phenom Tashi, alongside Josh O’Connor (“The Crown”) and Mike Faist (“West Side Story”) as Patrick and Art, two — let’s face it — deeply mediocre white men vying for her romantic attention. “Challengers” follows the trio from when they are promising teenage tennis players, through their college years, and into adulthood. There’s a lot going for it on paper: It’s the latest film from director Luca Guadagnino, known for his visually striking romances.

When HuffPost senior culture reporters Marina Fang, Taryn Finley and Candice Frederick initially convened to discuss “Challengers” out loud, we quickly realized we had so many thoughts to lob back and forth. So we took to the court for a long match.

Our Overall Impressions

Marina: Before we get into the nitty gritty, what were your initial gut reactions to “Challengers”? I think we were all at the same press screening, and I have to say, I enjoyed that it was a big — but not too big — crowd. While I have some specific criticisms about the substance that we’ll get into, I thought it was an enjoyable big-screen experience, and I think, if anything, people will want to talk about this movie. These days, convincing people to go see a movie in the theater is a hard sell, so getting people there is already a big feat. I thought the tennis-related tension was excellent (not so much the romantic tension, which we’ll get into), and like many of Luca Guadagnino’s films, it’s visually so striking. The tennis scenes are expertly shot and choreographed, and really grab your attention. Most movies about tennis have been pretty lackluster, so that itself is noteworthy. And this is an interesting rewriting of the typical sports movie script — though again, I have some concerns about more substantive aspects of it. But overall, it’s a very fun movie experience, which is what I imagine most people are looking for with this.

Candice: I was actually pretty taken aback by how small the theater and screening was, because folks have been making such a big deal out of this movie. But it was also interesting to experience how contained the laughter and genuine uneasiness was among the audience. I thought the movie was…fine? I mean, I think the excellent camera work really made the many tennis scenes really, really exciting to watch. I kept going “And?” a lot to myself while watching the movie.

There is a lot of sexual tension and homoeroticism between the two characters played by Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor (two names I have to constantly look up, because I keep forgetting who they are — which says a lot about their memorability). Though, I do think their characters are the most interesting, and the most developed in the movie. They essentially play two tennis stars who, as much as they excel in their sport, lead actually pretty dull romantic lives. I’m totally convinced about that, though, since folks usually amplify mid-looking athletes as sex symbols simply because they’re athletes — and often because they’re also white.

But in Luca Guadagnino’s land of make-believe, we’re just supposed to go with this. And it mostly works because these two guys are pretty unremarkable outside of tennis games. So, of course they’d both go for the “most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen” played by Zendaya. They have such interesting arcs, though. And Zendaya is just, well, the pretty girl who’s also a hardass and stuck in the middle of these two guys (neither of whom she seems to like very much). She has no interiority whatsoever. She takes advantage of their lovesickness and draws a wedge between the pair, which heightens the sexual tension among the threesome and increases the tension on the tennis courts. But we don’t really know what’s in it for her, her motivations, her story — nothing. Just more details about the guys. That bugged me.

Taryn: The marketing works because I had been interested in seeing this film for a few months before the screening, and I agree that it’s a good excuse to actually get out to the theater. I generally knew what the movie was based on, but didn’t have much of a clue what to expect other than this love triangle and Zendaya being an absolute bad bitch.

I have some gripes about “Challengers,” but overall I was entertained. I agree with you, Candice. I was surprised at how thrilling they could make tennis (they even note in the film how boring the sport can be). And a big part of that was the cinematography. I was genuinely impressed during moments when we bounced between Faist, O’Connor and the tennis ball’s POVs. That may have been the most memorable thing for me.

Candice : YES! The cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom is superb.

Marina: Bounced! Nice.

What’s Up With These Deeply Mediocre White Men?

Marina: Candice, to pick up on your point, which I totally agree with, that seems to be the central question. I understood the gravitational pull of Zendaya’s character toward these deeply mediocre white men. But I simply did not understand why she was drawn to them — and eventually marries one of them and channels her unfulfilled tennis dreams by living vicariously through his career. On the other hand, maybe that was the point, and it’s not that deep?

I really like Josh O’Connor as an actor and have enjoyed following his career and the interesting choices he has made, and I thought he was pretty good here. But I found Mike Faist so flat, which reinforced the whole question of: Why him? Why either of them?

Candice : Yeah, I’d truly like the answer to your first question: Why these guys? There is a lot of emphasis on how beautiful Tashi (Zendaya) is in the movie, and the movie tries really hard to convince its audience that these two guys are just as hot, and this potential love triangle is scorching hot. But like… I didn’t feel that heat at all, despite the many shots of the guys sweating on the court or the camera zeroing in on their abs — or even the many shots of Zendaya’s butt in short tennis shorts (I noticed this a lot and didn’t know what to make of it). Anyway, this wasn’t what was sexy to me. What had the potential to be hot was the sexual tension between the two guys, but the film never… really… goes… there. And I wish it did. That might also give me some kind of motivation for Tashi to make them better competitors. Still… Why should she care about that? Is it the money her husband would earn from that? Is she a gold digger? Does she not have her own money?

I keep focusing on the money part, because I might be trying to give Tashi some layers that just aren’t there. We know nothing about her family (her mother is white and, for much of the movie, I thought she was actually the nanny since she only appeared to take care of Tashi’s daughter). Her dad is Black and, well, that’s all we actually know about him because he only has one line, I think? But what drives Tashi? I still don’t know. And doesn’t she deserve better than these unremarkable white guys? Shouldn’t she deserve an equally hot dude?

Taryn: I feel like I kind of get why them — though I do really wish we had better male eye candy for a 2 1/2 hour movie. Looks don’t move Tashi in that way. Tennis does. And though they try hard to convince us that O’Connor’s character is this suave player (girl, I guess), I read it as what these guys can do on the court is the most attractive thing about them. And why Tashi is drawn to come in between their long-standing friendship in the name of “watching good tennis,” as she tells them the day they meet.

And let’s be honest, in the real tennis world, there are plenty of mediocre-looking white men.

My bigger issue is that I love how Tashi has control over these men, but like you said, Candice, we don’t really know where this diehard love of tennis comes from other than the fact that she’s amazing at it. Tashi is supposed to be central here, but oftentimes she feels like a background character or prize these two are vying for.

Marina: Yes, Candice, it tries so hard — and I just didn’t buy it! Like I said up top, the tennis tension was riveting. The romantic tension, not so much. I was deeply underwhelmed by all of it, especially since so much of the advertising has led us to believe this is supposed to be partially an erotic thriller.

Lol, Taryn. Totally spot-on. And yes, I think the film is often trying to subvert the standard love triangle and giving her agency (“trying” being the operative word here) — but ultimately, she’s still the object of their affection, and not so much the subject of the movie.

Candice : Taryn, I do agree that Tashi gets turned on by tennis, for reasons that aren’t actually explained and would really be helpful!

Marina, YES! I think the romantic tension between the two guys would have been the much better focus. Especially since one genuinely seems very interested in the other one!

There’s A Lot Of Substance Missing From This Movie

Marina: You’ve both already expertly raised perhaps the biggest glaring hole in this movie. It’s very selective about when it chooses to reflect the real world of professional tennis — and when it does not. There are a lot of topical references, like mentions of real-life players and cameo appearances by actual tennis commentators.

The financial dynamics are there: Candice, to go back to your earlier question about money, I think Tashi does need the money because she never got to turn pro because of her injury. And as a top professional player, her husband is among the very few people who actually get to be rich through tennis. Most players — for example, like Josh O’Connor’s character — never get even close to that level, where it’s financially lucrative.

Candice : Ah, I see. But is the audience just supposed to know that or should the movie at least hint to this financial reality and, potentially, Tashi’s motivations within that?

Marina: Totally, that’s just me adding context, which, as you said, is illustrative of the problem.

But where the movie barely goes at all is race. You can’t make a movie about professional tennis and virtually never acknowledge that Tashi is a Black woman in the extremely white world of professional tennis.

Taryn: Tashi sticks out like a sore thumb in this very white world. She’s obviously Black. There’s even a point during her party early on in the film when we see she has a Black dad. It sucks, however, that “Challengers” aims to be colorblind up until the last 20 minutes of the film when Tashi says, “I’m taking such good care of my little white boys.” What’s funny enough is that that line made its way into the trailer. If it was that important of a highlight to make it to the film’s promo, then why is race put on the back burner in the film?

Instead, the filmmakers put an emphasis on class. Tashi notes that she doesn’t have the financial privilege that led Art and Patrick to tennis. That’s fair to point out, but it’s lazy to not explore the other obvious factors impacting their relationship.

Marina: Right, there are passing references to the fact that Art and Patrick went to an elite tennis boarding school/training academy, and Tashi’s family didn’t have the money — and even if they did, she says she didn’t want to be entrenched in that insular world. Later on, Tashi also implies Patrick, whose career is tanking, has some sort of trust fund or generational wealth. She tells him he should just quit because he doesn’t need the money. But as you said, Taryn, it feels like a way to avoid going any deeper.

Candice: Honestly, I think it could be that neither Luca Guadagnino nor screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, two white men, are equipped to handle any racial nuance. As we know, white filmmakers have historically been far more invested in themes of class than race. I also don’t think they have their Black audiences in mind either. I get the impression that they made a movie they thought was hot and cast a very popular Black star in a movie that would then exceedingly fetishize her through a white male lens. And that often made me uncomfortable.

I think Zendaya does the best she can with all of this, but I think the movie ultimately fails her — and is just not interested in what she can do. There are so many moments where she rolls her eyes at these dudes (they’re both so needy and exhausting), and that’s great and makes Tashi a little more interesting. But I don’t know if that’s the direction or Zendaya. And if it’s the latter, I have to wonder why neither the filmmakers or movie seem interested in developing her beyond her reacting to the story versus being inside of it. Meaning, she’s often in the peripheral, which is strange for a lead actor.

A-ha, Taryn, I’m so glad you brought up that line about “taking care of my two little white boys.” It’s the only time in the movie where race is even brought up, and it seems so weird. Because part of the deal with colorblind casting is that race isn’t even supposed to be a concept, I thought. But then it’s brought up here and it’s like…. Um… OK? Seemed awkward to me.

Taryn : And that’s really it, Candice. They don’t have the range to really talk about race. It really is unfortunate for Zendaya and for us as an audience.

Marina: Totally, and it’s especially galling given how much the movie’s marketing relies on Zendaya’s star power. They’re really banking on her star power alone getting people to the theater — but then, the movie itself is under-serving her character.

I think I mentioned this to you both when we initially talked out loud about the movie, but the screenwriter is Justin Kuritzkes, who these days might be better known for being “ Past Lives ” writer-director Celine Song’s husband, whom John Magaro’s character is based on. So make of that what you will!

Candice : Yeah, Marina. Really coasting on Zendaya’s star power. And I think it’s really… something that the screenwriter is Song’s husband. Obviously, Song is Korean Canadian and Zendaya is a biracial Black American, so it’s not exactly the same. But like… Song might have still been able to help her man a bit with the racial nuance. Use your resources!

The Time Jumps May Require Some Extra Attention From Audiences

Marina: I also wanted us to talk about the structure. There are a lot of time jumps and parallel timelines going on. On screen, we get various time stamps to indicate where we are. Some of it makes sense for the narrative arc, like when the movie pairs a past event with a similar one happening in the present. Other times, there were a few too many shifts. It would have been wiser to just stick to two simple timelines: past and present. Or even just do it completely chronologically.

Taryn: I tried so hard to piece together where we were in the story, but the time jumps were really confusing.

I thought weaving together the present-day moments in Art and Patrick’s match with the related moments from their past that got them here was cool in theory. But in practice, it was a bit much. The main reason being that there were several time jumps. And there were time jumps within time jumps. I’m still piecing together what happened when.

Candice: I might be the only one who genuinely could never tell which timeline it was when they just showed O’Connor, who looked the same to me in every single era. I didn’t think there were too many time jumps, though, because it at least gave a little extra context and character that is still somehow left to be desired. But I can concede that they could and should have dropped one or two to get the movie down to two hours. There is really no need for it to be as long as it is. There just… isn’t that much story. Just more scenes.

Are We In An Age Of “Made For Social Media” Movies?

Marina: Taryn, when we initially talked about this movie, I thought you brought up an astute observation about how “Challengers” — and several other buzzy movies recently — seem tailor made for memes and social media reactions. And this gets at your point too, Candice, that so much of this movie is just scenes without a story. “Saltburn” is another one that comes to mind. Maybe “Civil War” as well, though I liked “Challengers” much more than either of those. What do we make of this potential age of “made for social media” movies?

Candice : Totally agree, Marina. I think comparing it to “ Saltburn ” is excellent. I don’t even think “ Civil War ” is even interesting or absurd enough to even be a meme, however.

Marina: Haha, fair. “Civil War” is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…

Candice: We do seem to be getting a lot of movies that are made with social media reactions in mind. Like, throw a weird scene in there or a funny line. Or some of them that social media folks are already debating about and the movie goes triple platinum… at least on the social media streets. But is there anything else here besides a lot of popular or buzzy people or scenes? No, not really. I think we really need to demand more from movies, honestly. They can’t just cater to our sensibilities or hashtags. That’s not a movie. That’s a tweet. We should be able to discern the difference.

Taryn : I love some good online discourse, but we’re putting the carriage before the horse here. I get that social media is the new “word of mouth” and studios heavily rely on it for promo, but it’s becoming insufferably corny.

“Challengers” will get think piece threads and TikTok edits that highlight the way Tashi has these men wrapped around her fingers, romantic relationships getting in the way of friendships, and who’s “husband material” or not. I’m already cringing.

Marina: I’m of two minds here: On the one hand, it is fun when a movie gets people talking and having a spirited conversation, whether it’s online or IRL. We don’t have a whole lot of those cultural watercooler moments right now. But as you’ve both said, it does us all a disservice when it’s mostly devoid of substance and feels purely commercial.

Candice : Yeah, I think social media is essential to film marketing these days as is the online discourse. But that doesn’t mean that the movie no longer has to be good. I think what often happens is that if a movie (or even a TV show, for that matter) garners a lot of chatter online, it’s considered good. And the two things sometimes don’t mean the same.

Marina: Something you say a lot, Candice, that I really appreciate is: When people talk about a movie and create discourse and write think pieces on it, it’s often them projecting some substance that isn’t actually there. It’s often not that deep! People are just searching for depth that isn’t there, which maybe says a lot about where many of these big Hollywood productions are these days.

Candice : It also says a lot about our bar for quality. I think even something that we as journalists have to think about is what we’re projecting onto a movie versus what the movie is actually giving us. We’re all human and bring our own experiences to art. But at some point, we really do need to ask ourselves: What’s actually happening in the movie?

Taryn : That really is the moral of the story, Marina. It’s not that deep.

“Challengers” opens in theaters Friday.

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